Herbert Girardet. Wiley-Academy, 2004. 304pp. £19.99
This is effectively another reworking of the 10-year-old The
Gaia Atlas of Cities: New Directions for Sustainable Urban Living.
All the usual suspects are displayed, albeit with significant
new additions and examples.
As with Reader and Jacobs, Mesopotamia gets a look in and Girardet
provides an interesting historical take on ancient cultures, seemingly
echoing Jared Diamond - who is critiqued in Jacobs' book - that
environmental and geographical circumstances (especially deforestation
for Girardet) have been the key factors leading to the demise
or preservation of civilisations.
This is a much more measured book than we are used to from Girardet
although he still is happy to indulge his pet subjects with alacrity:
from the problems of (unnatural) meat-eating for Chinese people;
the joys of cycling and recycling; the wonders of public transport
in (third world) Curitiba; the notion that dams are problems rather
than solutions, etc. To a certain extent, because Girardet is
more sure of himself and happy to bang his eco-message home, this
book is a useful companion piece to Reader's Cities.
